Cognitive Disorders and Syntactical Deficiencies in the Inmate Populations of Federal Penitentiaries in Canada.

Koopman, P. R. S.

A study examined cognitive disorders and syntactical deficiencies in the inmate populations of federal penitentiaries in Canada. The focus of the study was on the relationship between language development and cognitive ability. During the study, a total of 240 inmates from prisons throughout Canada were given hour-long interviews in which they provided oral language samples and completed three cognitive tasks dealing with diagramming relations, following directions, and determining ships' directions. In addition, data were collected pertaining to the inmates' ages, educational attainment, criminal records, intelligence quotients, and past performance on achievement and personality measures. Also interviewed were three control groups of normal adults who were not inmates, normal adults who were inmates, and learning-disabled adults who were not inmates. Because the interviews were administered by two separate examiners and because significant differences in the scores were found by each examiner, the data collected by each examiner had to be analyzed separately. It did appear, however, that those inmates examined may reasonably be said to have learning disabilities. It also appeared that while the inmates differed from one another on the qualitative patterns they provided on the language and cognitive measures, they were, nevertheless, generally inferior on these measures to non-learning disabled adults in and out of prison. (MN)